Very often when people dine in restaurants, particularly during the evening hours, the diners will order wine as a desirable accompaniment to the edibles comprising their meal. Conventionally, the wine is provided to the diners by disposing the wine bottle within an upright support of the standard type which is self-standing and normally placed at a location adjacent the table at which the diners are seated. The wine is rarely served by merely placing the bottle upon the dining table for in some restaurant establishments, such a practice is simply not considered to be proper dining etiquette. In addition, the available surface area of the dining table is normally limited and does not readily permit the utilization of such for the support of non-essential accessories. As may well be appreciated, the available table surface area is normally utilized for supporting the requisite dinnerware comprising several meal courses simultaneously, flatware utensils, stemware, food seasonings, and the like.
The primary difficulty or disadvantage often encountered as a result of the employment of such standard type wine bottle-holding ice bucket support apparatus resides in the fact that such apparatus exhibits a relatively low level of stability. Not only can such apparatus be accidentally knocked over by means of, for example, one of the diners seated adjacent to the standard support when he or she may be reaching for the wine bottle while, for example, being pre-occupied with dinner conversation, but as has also been experienced, such support apparatus is readily capable of being inadvertently knocked over upon one of the diners, seated adjacent to the standard support, arising from his or her dinner chair in order to leave the dining table for any one of a variety of reasons. Anyone having experienced such an accidental occurrence can readily appreciate how frustrating, humiliating, and embarrassing such an event can be.
Consequently, if there existed support apparatus for receptacles in general, and for wine bottle-ice buckets in particular, which could be securely mounted directly upon an edge portion of the dining table, the aforenoted disadvantageous characteristics of conventional standard type ice bucket support apparatus could be overcome while simultaneously preserving the necessary available table surface area for the dining requisites. A need therefore exists for such table-mounted support apparatus which could provide the service convenience of a standard type receptacle support apparatus while exhibiting a substantially degree of stability and propensity against inadvertent dislodgement from its support position.